Expanding on Family Time

Given it is the holiday season and all, and everyone's already well into their Christmas shopping, I wanted to throw out a few suggestions for family oriented presents this Christmas.  I don't just mean gifts for the whole family.  I mean gifts that promote family time.  Family time is one of the things I feel is most missing in your average American household!  For many families, the only thing they do together is watch television.  That dynamic has to change!

When I was a kid, I remember spending all kinds of time playing video games and board games with my dad.  The whole family would sit down and work on puzzles.  We would build extensive Lego houses.  While it wasn't always that way, we did spend some time as a family, doing things together.  In truth, I think the biggest thing I regret about my childhood is that we didn't do it more often!

Some of my fondest memories as a child were playing games with the family.  I remember my sister and I got Cooties and Don't Spill the Beans one year for Christmas.  Those were long-time favorites of ours.  We would play them for endless hours.  It was right up there with a game called Don't Wake the Dragon that's no longer made, but I wish they would bring it out again!  With Cooties, each player is trying to build their Cootie.  They have to roll to get certain parts and the object is to be the first to get all your parts.  Don't spill the beans is a balancing act where you've got to try and put all your beans up on the pot without it tipping over if it spills, you've got to take all the beans.  We loved that game!

My friends used to love playing games that seemed so much more pointless.  Hungry, Hungry Hippos was a favorite, and I have to admit, I still like that game today.  It makes for some silly, crazy family time.  We used to have this game called Pig Pong, which was a ping-pong like game where you hit the ball over the net by puffing air from a plastic pig.  It was pretty funny.  I think my mom and my sister still have some of the pigs!  A friend of mine had the all time best game, or so my friends were concerned, called Mall Madness.  Apparently nothing speaks to girls more than shopping?  We also had a lot of crazy games of Twister!  Who doesn't remember Twister?  (Who hasn't been somehow injured playing Twister?)

I know I've mentioned Made for Trade yesterday.  That was one of our favorites right up through Middle School.  It's right up there on educational value as Oregon Trail, Amazon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, and to a certain degree, Civilization and SimCity.  These games are not only fun, but do teach children.  In my family we used to play these games together, even the computer games.  In Oregon Trail we would all create family members and make decisions together.  In Civilization my dad and I would try and take over the world together.

I think my favorite games of all times were ones based on role playing games.  My favorites were Dungeon Quest, Hero Quest, and Talisman.  We never played these games alone.  Usually my dad played with us, but sometimes we could get my mom in on it too.  These were my favorite games because they were my parents' favorite games.  I've found that's what makes a game the most popular with kids.  If the parents love it, so will the kids!

My mom was always bringing us home sets of cards too.  We had a card set for Rook.  There was a fish themed set for Go Fish.  I think we had a Safari Rummy set too.  However, my favorite card games were always Uno, which we played all the time with the girl who lived in the apartment downstairs, and Cribbage, which we played with my aunts, uncles, and grandparents at every major gathering.

My family was all about the games too!  I loved going over there because it meant there was always going to be something to play.  Just ask anyone in my family about Passtimes and the potato questions!  Now that I think about it, I want to pick that game up again.  It could be a great teaching tool with the kids as it's a wonderful history trivia game!  However, the ultimate family game we played was Trivial Pursuit.  We would all sit around, broken up into teams, racing to complete our pies!  I think part of the reason this was so much fun was the teams, but with such a big family and so much variety in ages, it was kind of necessary.  Each team usually had at least one kid and one adult.  I have to say, my all-time favorite was when we would play with the Christmas Questions.

Now that I'm on my own with my own children, I've tried to revive the tradition of game time, but it's so hard when everyone is so busy.  It sometimes seems like there's no time to sit down to a game!  We've played Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders when my daughter was younger.  We hope to get my son into it as we settle in a bit more.  We've played the Game of Life Twists and Turns with my daughter.  It's unique version of the Game of Life, but I think I would have preferred it if it didn't do all the math digitally off a credit card.  We did have one day where all the adults got together to play Nintendo Monopoly.  The adults have also played Risk, including the Lord of the Rings Edition Risk, and rummy.  I think it's important that my kids see that not only do families play board games together, but adults play games like this together too!

It's not just board games that we play.  We got a Nintendo Wii for the purpose of having something to do together as a family.  Because we got it used, it didn't come with Wii Sports, but we did get some games the family can play together.  Our first "family" game was Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a game my daughter loves playing with my partner!  It may be a game of pointless violence to some, but to watch them play together, you wouldn't think anything of the sort!  They're both really funny about the whole thing and play in good humor, not competitively at all!  Since then we've also picked up Wii Fit Plus, which turned out to be a great investment!  Not only does it help the family to stay in shape, but it's got a bunch of fun balance games that the whole family can enjoy!  Wii Sports Resort has also provided a good number of games we can play as a family, either competitively or cooperatively.  The kids love competing with each other for the speed slice challenge in the sword fighting, and it teaches co-ordination!

So why all of these links and recommendations?  Yes, part of it is because I'm an Amazon Associate and buying through my links makes me money.  However, I think it's far more important to get you thinking about what you can do to improve your family time this year!  Whether you buy from Amazon or your local game supplier, picking up family games will give you one more thing to do together as a family.  Family time is so forgotten about in today's modern society that I think of this as doing my small part to inspire those around me to spend more time with their kids!  With Christmas coming up, what could be better timing to pick up a game the whole family can enjoy?